Either way, Steinberg is a great moderator for these discussions. Though he's been out of the spotlight for a while, Steinberg was huge in the 1960s and '70s. More recently, he hosted a TV Land series, "Sit Down Comedy with David Steinberg," which I didn't see but that sounds pretty similar to the concept of this series -- minus all the pay-cable freedom to curse, naturally.

The conversations with Rickles and Seinfeld, recorded separately, are fairly wide-ranging, particularly for how short they are.

You learn, for instance, that Rickles only started making fun of his audience when he realized that the impressions he was attempting stunk. And Seinfeld admits that he never expected his NBC sitcom to be a success and only wanted his name in the title because he thought he'd sell a few more tickets to standup shows in tiny venues.

Steinberg is clearly a big fan of both interview subjects, and because they all speak the same language, they get to the heart of what the best standup comedy can do.

"It's the most intimate performance, I think, that there is," Seinfeld says. "That relationship, when it's locked in, is so intense and rich that all of the negative things about comedy that people say -- how difficult it is, how humiliating it can be, they're never recognized -- all that stuff. I embrace that stuff because I think the ledger still tips in our favor.

"You get so much from it. And you're also so much more in control of your life and your destiny and your art than anybody else is."

It's not all deep talk, though: There's a priceless example of Rickles at his prime, needling President Reagan at his second inauguration. In the second episode, which features a solo conversation with Chris Rock, there's a bit of one of Bill Cosby's best routines, one that I've heard forever but never fails to make me guffaw.

Also on: FX's "Archer" (9 p.m., cable channel 43) airs a hysterical episode with accountant Cyril getting his first shot as a field agent, followed by another new episode of "Unsupervised"; and NBC's "30 Rock" (7 and 8 p.m., cable channel 5) airs a double-shot of episodes, sandwiching an episode of "Parks and Recreation" (7:30 p.m., cable channel 5) that finds the gang bowling.